Alastair Reynolds: "if you take the view (as many do) that SF itself has turned away from rational speculation about the future, preferring to indulge in retro fabulation and inter-genre cross-pollination than engaging with the hard problem of what we're going to be doing a hundred or a thousand years from now, be it on Earth or beyond."

Graham McNeill: "with Apollo 13, you had the drama of three astronauts and the entirety of NASA trying to get them home safely. Drama and people. Isn't that what keeps people interested and coming back for more? Unfortunately (from the point of view of keeping the public's interest piqued) the dramas of space exploration didn't really get as exciting as that again."